


Significavit

by sobrecogimiento



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-24
Updated: 2011-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:22:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sobrecogimiento/pseuds/sobrecogimiento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a fic to the prompt from dreamlittleyo, as payment for the awesome ladybug icon she made me: As for a prompt. Sam/Dean of course. And actually, I've got QUITE the hankering right now for thunder storms, power outages and/or first time Wincest. Any iteration or combination in there will make me EXCEPTIONALLY squeeful.</p><p>In addition, it's set during S4 and deals heavily with Dean's nightmares and Sam's guilt complexes. Oh, and I completely destroyed the Bible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Significavit

**Author's Note:**

> On the dream parts, I'm kinda leaving it ambiguous. I don't think it's really a previous life for them, but it could be if you want to see it like that. Or it could be Lily headfucking them. Or it could be Sam's guilt complexes. Read it as you will.
> 
> Title: Is taken from Chaucer. It means a writ of excommunication. Since dreamlitteyo always uses legal terms in Latin for fic names, I tried to find something in the same language. It seemed appropriate, considering how they are never an actual part of any establishment (even some of the hunting fraternity is out to get them), and are always such outcasts and vagabonds. Just wanted to explain that.

In Sam's dream, Dean's an angel. He's shining and beautiful and should be too bright to look at, but Sam sees him fine, gets lost in the sparking eyes and dazzling smile, so unburdened an expression he doesn't think he can ever remember seeing it on his face in the waking world. They're children, and Sam runs from him through the white halls of heaven, yelling  _Catch me if you can, Catch me if you can_  over his shoulder. Dean reaches him, picks him up and spins him in a circle until they're both shrieking with laughter, as the others look on in disapproval and alarm. Affection is a simple thing, but angels cannot understand it, and they are threatened by what they don't know. 

*  
His father shines so bright he can't look at him, has to kneel at the ground and avert his face, and try not to wonder if the old man orchestrated it that way. It would be too close to the thing they call 'sin'. His father orders him to a station on Earth, to keep silent vigil over nothing in the cold and rain and blistering heat.  _But there's nothing to watch yet_ , Sam protests. He gets a rumble for his effort, ominous with threat.  _There will be._

*  
He watches. The ground splits and rolls and buckles and spews lava, screams like it's alive and in pain, belches fetid air to cloud the sky and keeps the world plunged in black. Sam watches and doesn't know what he's watching for. He watches the Earth destroy and rebuild itself a thousand times, waiting for it to finally self destruct into the black beyond, carry him with it into oblivion. One day, it rains. Water falls from the sky until he's soaked with it, doesn't stop until there's more water on the surface than there is land. Somehow, it only makes the world colder and bigger, more lonely even though he knows he should take it as a miracle, rejoice in the sign from home. Dean visits him. Not often, but sporadically, leaves for as long as he can be missed, a few minutes or a few years.  _I don't want you to get in trouble_ , Sam tells him again and again, lips quirking into a smile as Dean handstands on top of a long-dead volcano.  _Don't worry_ , Dean always replies, grinning.  _I don't have a post_. Sam returns his grin uneasily, internally debating the truth of that statement. 

Dean's with him the day he hears the words from the sky, from their father.  _Let there be light._  Suddenly, the sun he didn't know was there breaks through the clouds and turns the sea a brilliant blue, the land still cracked and broken. Sam can't stop smiling; in all the years he's been on Earth, it's the only good thing he's seen. He looks at Dean to find that he can't stop gaping in awe, gestures to the sun and the sea and stares back at Sam like he's demanding an explanation. All Sam can do is shrug and tell him, stupidly,  _Your eyes are green. I couldn't see that before_. Finally, Dean recovers and grins back at him.  _You're beautiful,_  he says.  _But I knew that already._

Two sunrises later, Sam's father orders him home. The first day there, he sits with Dean in heaven, watching the waves roll in the uninhabited sea. 

*  
Earth is green the next time he's stationed there. He forgets he's homesick because there's so much life here, so many things to watch. The grass waves tall in the breeze, above his waist when he stands in it. Animals pass him, great sinuous beasts grazing or hunting those that graze. He moves around the perimeter of his assigned area, watching in fascination, until he finds the things called humans and can't look away. They're like a bad parody of angels; naked and smelly and hideous and living on their basest instincts, but already Sam knows they're the smartest things this side of the sky and wonders in amazement and horror why his father created something like that to rule this world. He needs to know so badly that he asks and asks until he thinks he'll get hit by lightning if he does it again, but finally his father answers him, says they're a blight, a stain that needs to be fixed.

Then he notices that the humans laugh. They look each other in the face, in the eye, smile or sneer at each other, laugh or cry or fight or do other things he can't recognise. They live, are aware and feel like Sam knows he never can. From this he learns the price of perfection.

*  
His father shines so bright he can't look at him, and the hand on the side of his face burns him to a point beyond pain, but he knows better than to move away.  _You're my golden one,_ Sam's father tells him.  _You shine brighter than all the rest._  He gives him a special station, over a garden in the middle of the lost, wild continent of the humans and lesser beasts. 

 _Regard that tree,_  his father says, pointing, and Sam could cry with relief that the hand is gone from his face.  _You must never eat its fruit, nor allow the inhabitants of the garden to eat it._

 _Why?_  Sam asks. He knows he's the only one who ever asks it, which makes it dangerous, but he can't help himself. 

 _Because you will too well understand the nature of the blight upon this Earth_ , his father says, and sends him away with no further explanation. 

With that, Sam's mouth waters for it.

*  
 _Cute,_  Dean says, eyes on the two children. 

 _I guess,_  Sam agrees grudgingly. He can't say that he thinks they're missing something, even though he knows with a deep, sickening feeling that it's true. But none dare challenge his father's concept of perfection, even if all he does is create a wreck and give it that name, which he might have very well done. 

Dean's foot nudges Sam's where they're dangling off of their perch in the air. The boy and the girl are sleeping, perfect faces flushed with the recent exertion of play. Dean turns to him suddenly, hesitant, and then moves closer. He kisses Sam once, and then pulls back, smiling shyly. Sam doesn't think. He leans in and kisses him back, holds them together for a long time, even though he knows this is what they call a sin.

*  
 _I don't understand,_  she sobs, on the ground at his feet. She's beautiful, face cherubic and nudity clean instead of vulgar. Sam misses when she was young, when both his wards were young and innocent and happy. He's watched them. Watched and learned that perfection is only for angels, that subtracting vital knowledge, instincts, in return for perfect bodies and higher minds only causes humans insurmountable pain, feelings that grow until it feels like something might break, because they don't know how to find release. 

Sam looks at the one tree he's never allowed them near, the one he's not allowed near himself. Wonders if he should follow through with what's been tempting him since he was appointed here. 

She follows his gaze, asks,  _If I eat it, will I know? Is that why we're not allowed there?_

That does it, and he implores her to stay there because he doesn't want to see her hurt.  _It's ok,_ he says.  _I'll eat it so you don't have to. Then I'll tell you how to make it better._

The trust in her eyes is painful. He turns his back, squares his shoulders, and deliberately walks to the tree. A silver fruit hangs full and ripe in front of his face, and he plucks it, bites and feels the juice dribble into his mouth and down his chin, and then he blacks out.

Sam wakes to see her face hovering over him. His head is burdened with knowledge, Grace feels like a lead wait in his chest, almost to the point where he wants to rip it out, but he has an idea of where it would lead him. 

 _What is it?_ she demands. Her need to know bores into him. 

 _Don't,_  Sam gasps.  _You don't--it's not--you don't want to know_.

He's on the ground, head pounding and stomach rolling, weaker than he's ever been since his creation. Sam can't stop her, reaches out and falls short, as she steps over him and picks up the fruit he dropped when he fell. He can't stop her from clutching it in both hands and biting down. 

Afterwards, she smiles at him, eyes full of the intelligence of instinct, and brings a fresh fruit to the boy she wants to make her lover. 

 _Lily, please,_ Sam calls after her. But it's already too late. 

She pulls the boy with her beneath the cover of trees and they do something Sam wishes didn't have to be a sin. 

His father tries to banish the girl and give the boy a new companion. But Sam can't stand the way the boy looks at her and can't have what he wants, what they'd both want if she was whole. This time, he feeds her the fruit himself, and flees before his father can banish them all. 

*

Dean finds him again in the frozen wastes of Siberia. If Sam had the energy, he'd run, avoid this, try to escape his light because it only reminds him of what he lost and it hurts too much, but he's tired. And God, Sam wants to see him. So he stands there, wind beaten and immobile as the twisted stumps of vegetation, hunched and close to the ground. Immortal, Sam has no such struggle to survive and regrets it. It would be a welcome distraction. 

Dean finds him lost. Sam's given everything he has for ideals attached to nothing and is now left with nothing, too scared and too guilty to go home, with no course of action except to preserve his own meagre existence. Dean begs him to go back, to ask forgiveness, to do something, anything besides this, because he can see that Sam's trying to freeze himself into this wilderness so he doesn't have to feel anymore. He can see that Sam's Grace is dragging him down instead of lifting him up like it's supposed to, that something's wrong and he wants to help.

 _You can't,_ Sam tells him finally.  _You just--you have no idea._

 _Yeah,_ Dean protests.  _Yeah, I do._

 __Sam didn't think there was anything whole left in him to break, but Dean's expression right then proves him wrong. _You ate it,_ he says, more misery than accusation. 

 _I love you,_ Dean tells him firmly.   _I love you and I didn't even know what that meant, and I needed to know and I, I'm not sorry._

The next thing Sam knows, Dean's kissing him and he can't push him away. They commit that thing called a sin right there on the frozen ground beneath a grey and lifeless sky, and Sam wonders what their father would think of them if he could see. The one who he thought shone the brightest corrupting the one who really did. They aren't messengers now, and they aren't warriors. They're lovers who aren't supposed to know love, angels with their Graces intact but for all practical purposes human. 

Sam sends Dean back to heaven sullied and used and tainted, tells him that there's a war coming and that he can't be part of it, and none of it's a lie because Sam can't go back, but he knows how to move forward. Sam will not see Dean suffer damnation if he loses. In his dying breath, impaled on the point of his father's sword, he hopes to see Dean on the winning side, bright and pure and alive, so he can die happy. And if heaven loses, by some twist of fate, Sam will pick Dean up out of the rubble and carry him to safety, turn to dust any who contradict him. 

Sam sends Dean back to heaven with a prayer to no one because he can't really pray anymore, with a kiss and a promise because now he has a plan.

*  
He calls her name into the wind and she comes to him by darkness, the hint of moonbeams around the edges of a cloud. Sam feels himself relax, release tension and erase doubt he hadn't even known was there. She has to come, because she has no choice and absolutely nothing else in this world or any other. 

Still, she's stubborn. He wouldn't have expected it any other way and accordingly lets his teeth gleam at her through the night, surety in his gaze. Her mortal body died long ago, and now she uses another as a vessel, a human girl so young and unspoiled that Sam can hardly imagine that she's a nomad like the rest of them. 

 _Why should I help you?_ she says, defiance a thin facade and all she has to use.

 _Because you have nothing else,_ he reminds her, and watches the impending collapse. 

 _You made me like this!_ she cries. _You made me what I am!_

He places a hand on her cheek, feels that it's wet with tears.  _No,_ Sam corrects her. _All I did was tell you the truth._ He looks down at her with something like pity _. Does this make it better?_ he asks _. Is it the same way it was before?_

 _You know it's not,_ she retorts, sobbing openly.  _You couldn't help me, and now it's only worse. I'm alone._

 _I know,_ Sam says, all tenderness and quiet gravity.  _We're both alone, but I didn't do that to us._ He waits for her to still, for her crying to stop as the words take effect.  _I didn't do this to us,_ he repeats.  _But I know who did._

Afterward, he keeps talking, spelling out his plan, but he doesn't really have to say anything else. He knows he has her. 

*  
Someday, humans will have nations, and when they decide a person can no longer live in that nation and force them to leave, it will be called exile.

Someday, humans will have churches. When they force a person to leave, they will call it excommunication. 

In the pit of fire, Sam wonders what they will call this, and he finds the answer in a whispered crackle of the flames. _Damnation. Divine Judgment. Perdition._ At the moment, none of it seems strong enough. 

He wasn't really expecting to win. None of them were. But they were expecting oblivion, not pain. 

When he drags himself out of the pit, he takes the fallen with him, and proclaims  _Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven_ amidst their cheers. 

Sam wonders if there will be a name for entire groups that face banishment, something that encompasses a broader scope than just one person. He needs a name for this, because heaven is a church, and they've all been excommunicated. 

He looks around at the celebrations of the fallen in their new refuge and decides it's Pandemonium. 

*  
They tear Dean's Grace out. 

Sam's in hell and he can hear it, runs to the surface and spreads his wings when he does, but it's too late and he knows it.

He looks up to the beautiful, star-filled sky in blank horror as Dean screams and screams and he realises that they're taking their fucking time, making him suffer more. 

Sam hates himself right then because he never called Dean to him, didn't want him to suffer hell and had no idea that heaven could be immeasurably worse. He doesn't know who told the authorities or how they found out, or if their father just finally noticed that something was wrong, and it doesn't matter. Dean's falling and Sam can't save him because he tried too hard.

They toss him out like garbage when they're done, Grace to east and the remainder of his soul to the west, and Sam chokes back his grief and rage to run into the rising sun and catch the one that's closer.

Dean's Grace burns his hands and shines like a star before he traps it in a pendant, almost makes him cry from the sheer beauty of it because he's become so conditioned to hell that he's forgotten everything that's not built from ugliness and pain. The weight of Sam's Grace is palpable, too much for him to carry and remain standing, remain living. He hardly feels it when he rips it out, doesn't hear his own scream. 

In his last moments Sam notices that his Grace doesn't give off light like Dean's does. It's not even white.

It's black.

~*~  
Sam jerks awake from his nightmare to the sound of Dean having one of his own. Brushing away the fragments, he stumbles across the room, nearly kills himself tripping over a duffel bag, to get to his brother and take him out of whatever memory of hell he's reliving. 

Every muscle in Dean's body is tense and he's murmuring a constant stream of  _nonononodon't_ through clenched teeth. 

"Dean," Sam says, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him. "Dean, c'mon man, wake up."

"Sam!" Dean shouts, before he even opens his eyes. It sounds like a plea for help, and his brother wonders with a feeling of lead dropping into his stomach how many times he said that in forty years, how many times he yelled for help to someone who couldn't save him. 

"Right here," Sam tells him, hand on his shoulder. "I'm right here. It's ok, you're ok."

Dean sits up, blinks, focuses on him, and without warning grabs Sam's face and forces him into the light of the street lamp, a chink falling in from the mostly closed shades. They're too close and Dean's  _hands_ are on his  _face,_ which is more distracting than it should be because he just had a dream about kissing him and excommunication and worse things, and fuck, he should have grown out of that years ago. He should have never had it to grow out of in the first place. 

Finally, Dean nods and lets him go, chest heaving. "Ok," he says. "Ok." 

"You better now?" Sam asks him guardedly. He's spent the past week since Dean's confession waiting to say the wrong thing and get punched or get his head bitten off or wake up to an empty motel room and no Impala parked outside. 

"Yeah," Dean manages. "Thanks." He lies down, faces away from Sam, just another goddamned defence mechanism his brother hasn't figured out how to break through yet. "You can go back to bed now, Sam."

Sam doesn't. Instead, he sits next to him, back against the headboard. "I want to help you," he says.

"You can't--" Dean tries, voice broken in ways he can't keep hidden anymore. 

"I know I can't." Sam interrupts. "There's no possible way I could understand or make you feel better about what happened to you or what you did. I'm offering anyway."

"Go back to bed, Sam," Dean orders, back a fortress that he for some reason still thinks will work. 

"Goddamn it," Sam whispers. "Will you stop being such a fucking martyr?" 

"What do you  _want_ from me?" his brother asks, more misery than anger. 

Sam tells himself to shut up and drop it, but he can still hear the dream in his head, still hear Dean  _screaming,_ and it doesn't matter that it isn't real. He remembers how he saw his brother really cry for the first time in his life a week ago, held him and let Dean sob into his chest, and that's as real as anything. He thinks about how everything's deteriorated since then, in silence and awkwardness and minimal conversation. 

"Whatever  _you_ want," Sam says. "You don't have to go shoving your face in this every time you turn around like it's your duty. It's not."

Dean snorts. "Bet Cass n' Jugless would beg to differ."

"Fuck them." Sam's dead serious, beliefs and faith blatantly disregarded, and that's probably what shuts Dean up. "I'm not saying to give up, Dean. I'm saying that you can take some time to breathe once in awhile. And I don't mean drinking yourself into a stupor."

"Even if I--" Dean shakes his head. "Even if I could, I wouldn't put that on you."

Sam huffs, finally bordering on angry. "Who'd you make that deal for, Dean?"

"That's not--"

"The hell it's not. I was the idiot who got myself killed, and I couldn't save you. I can't make that better, but I'd do anything."

"Not anything," Dean protests quietly, in some ways a statement of the obvious.

"You're right," Sam agrees. "I won't leave, I won't let you get hurt, and I won't let you self-destruct. But besides that, anything."

Dean's quiet for so long that Sam's ready to tell him to think about it and go back to his own bed. The adrenaline from his dream and from trying to wake Dean from his is retreating fast, and he's crashing, exhausted, and he's already swung his legs to the side of the bed when Dean grabs his wrist.

Sam turns around, surprised, to see Dean's eyes wide and glossy, staring at him in the dark. "Sleep here tonight?" he asks, hesitant and almost too quiet to be heard.

Wordlessly, Sam lifts the covers and slides in next to him, slips an arm around Dean's waist and pulls him closer. Dean stiffens and then relaxes, head pillowed into Sam's shoulder and hand covering his brother's. They fit, same way they did when they were kids, positions reversed. 

The last thing Sam hears before falling asleep is a muffled thanks, and he smiles sadly. He allowed himself to be damned, but he still couldn't save him. 

This is the least he can do. 

*  
Sam wakes in the morning from sunbeams falling through the drapes and starts because Dean's about two inches away, positions shifted sometime during the night so they're face-to-face. Dean blinks himself awake and doesn't move and Sam wishes he didn't feel like that was weird. 

"Morning," Sam says awkwardly, goes to move and realises he can't because Dean's tangled around him, and if he doesn't move soon it's not going to end well. 

"Mornin'," Dean slurs, green eyes warm and breath gusting over Sam's lips, and he needs to move  _now._

Sam shoves him away maybe a little too roughly, gets on his feet and thanks whatever powers that be that he doesn't have morning wood. "Gonna shower," he announces. 

"Wake me when you're done," Dean yawns, and smashes his face back into the pillow. 

Sam smiles--can't help it--and heads for the bathroom. 

"Sam?" Dean says over donuts and coffee.

Something about his brother's voice makes him nervous, and his heart races in a way that's completely unrelated to caffeine. "Yeah?"

  
"I. Um. Thanks." Dean stammers, blushing. 

"Don't mention it," Sam tells him shortly. Now would be about the worst time for Dean to decide he suddenly wants to start talking about  _feelings,_ and he seriously wants to just drop it. 

Dean stares at him, eyes green and clear, and Sam gets a sudden image of them reflecting a grey sky amid a lifeless landscape. "I didn't have any more dreams," he says, quiet and intense like that's supposed to mean something more than it does. 

"Good." Sam nods, has a feeling he's missing something. "That's good."

"Yeah," Dean agrees. "Yeah."

*  
They sleep in the same bed after that. 

The transition is sudden enough that it only bothers Sam because it doesn't bother him. It's like they're kids again--just like when they were kids and Sam was scared of the dark--and if he keeps telling himself that, maybe he can keep it from getting too weird. And mostly, it works. Works right up until the point where Sam wakes up with a hard-on in the middle of the night and Dean limp and snoring against him, face buried in his neck and won't let him move. Sam doesn't rut into Dean's hip like his body's begging him to and he doesn't bring himself off, but he jerks off in the shower more after that, tries to control this thing he thought he had killed and buried years ago.

As it turns out, nothing stays dead. 

Suddenly, he's sixteen again and horny all the time, and he can't be moody and sullen like he was back then because Dean needs him, and he can't go back to sleeping in his own bed because he has no explanation he can actually give, and he fucking promised. Anything. 

Three weeks later Sam gets them a room with only one bed, and Dean freaks out quietly and thinks he's hiding it ok until Sam rounds on him and says, "What?"

"That," Dean says, gesturing towards the bed and kind of hating himself for not being able to look at it.

"We've just driven sixteen hours, I'm tired, and this was the only room with a kitchenette," Sam snaps. He's sick of this and it's driving him crazy, but some days it's worth it. It's worth it when Dean falls asleep and wakes up again without dreaming, or when Sam can soothe him out of one without him waking. "So stop being a jerk about it and go to bed."

"Bitch," Dean replies with a grin and shuts himself in the bathroom.

Days like this Sam thinks he may be able to find a working definition of normal.

*  
Sam can count on one hand the number of times he's kissed his brother. 

The night Sam announced he was leaving for Stanford, John walked out on them and didn't come back until the next afternoon, and Dean got drunk. He got so drunk he couldn't see straight, couldn't walk straight, and when Sam took pity on him and wrestled him up the stairs and into bed to sleep the shit off, Dean kissed him. Sam kissed him back and Dean passed out and Sam took his shoes off and couldn't sleep until dawn. Dean drove him to the bus station, grim and hung-over the next morning, and Sam knew he didn't remember any of it.

It happened two more times, once right after Sam came back from the dead, a day before Dean's deal came due, same scenario both times. Dean drunk as hell, not remembering a thing come morning, and Sam never knew whether to be grateful for it or not. Dean would probably punch Sam if he told him, or blow it off as nothing or tell him he was nuts. Or he'd freak out, leave, and Sam thinks that's the real reason he never told him.

If he'd lost that when Dean died, nothing would have saved him from getting himself killed. Not vengeance, not Ruby, not even the thought of someday getting him back. Sam would have blown his own brains out within a day, and he when he thinks of that he thinks it's best that Dean doesn't remember. 

*  
In Ohio they find a goddamned possessed tree. 

Families have been dying here for two hundred years, spot taboo for Indians before that, and at first they think it's the house, then another curse they should just get the hell away from. But Dean insists they're missing something, and they keep looking for another week until Sam finds it.

"Dean," he says, incredulous. "It's the tree."

"What?" Dean says, wonders if he's heard right.

"It's the fucking tree," Sam repeats, and busts out laughing because he can't help it. "There's a demon possessing a tree," he gasps.

Dean blinks at him, trying to decide for a minute as to whether this is funny, and if so, how, and then he says, "What do you bet it voted for Ralph Nader?"

It's not that funny, but Sam doubles over laughing all over again, and this time Dean joins him, and Sam nearly stops because he can't remember the last time he heard Dean laugh like that, free and open. He keeps laughing longer than he has any excuse to, just to hear it longer, Dean  _happy,_ just to see him smile like he did when they were kids.

Burning the tree won't help, so Sam finds and exorcism and they head across town, jaws set and minds on the job because this thing's killed dozens of people and suddenly it's not really funny anymore.

Dean takes a hit to the shoulder and Sam gets a swipe that leaves scratches across his face and chest, but the demon vacates the tree with a flash of light and they go back to the room grinning and victorious, to pour rubbing alcohol on each other's wounds and stitch up Dean's shoulder. 

"Think this'll be my first scar?" Dean asks, looking over his shoulder into the mirror. 

"I don't know," Sam says. He's trying not to look at him, trying not to think about how the blood welled up on his shoulder and how for a stupid moment he almost licked it.

Dean smiles, wide and happy, and Sam wishes he'd put on a shirt. "Back in business, Sammy," he says. 

Sam nods, eyes tracing where scars used to be, pieces of their lives missing. He feels like Dean belongs to him again, for the first time since he came back.

~*~  
In Sam's dream, Dean's an angel. He's got an army behind him, swords and shields gleaming bright and spread out to the horizon and beyond, but Sam doesn't even see them. He's supposed to have an army of his own, equal to the one before him, but he's alone and a shudder goes through the enemy, suspecting a trick. 

Sam doesn't bother telling them he has none. Actions speak louder than words. He stops before Dean and kneels at his feet, head bowed, and places his brother's sword on the back of his neck. 

 _I don't want the world to end,_  he says.  _If I have to die, fine._

 _Damn you!_  Dean yells.  _You're supposed to fight, goddamn it!_

Sam laughs humourlessly. _When did I ever do what I was told?_ he asks.  _Please, Dean, just get it over with._

Dean raises his sword and slams the point down in the dirt. He falls to his knees and embraces his brother, crying into his shoulder,  _Thought I lost you, Sammy._

The angels murmur, sound escalating to a dull roar because of sheer numbers. At first a few, and then many, and then all, turn their backs on the scene in the dirt and spread their wings towards heaven. 

Affection is a simple thing, but they are threatened by what they don't understand.

~*~  
They dispel a poltergeist in St. Louis that was tearing a two-story house apart by the seams and save a family of four. The mother hugs both of them and the father shakes their hands and the boy and girl cling to them until their parents drag them away. The cat digs its claws into Sam's shirt and the dog jumps up and licks Dean's face, and then they all retreat back into their world and let Sam and Dean retreat into theirs. 

What's left of the house has a picket fence around it, and Sam's surprised to find Dean staring at it with a mixture of something that's probably consternation and longing before he shakes his head and starts the car. 

"Dean," Sam says quietly. 

"What?" Dean grunts, like he has no idea what this is about. 

Sam's eyes fix on his face, hold him because he's the only person Dean can't lie to. "It's not a crime if you want to settle."

"Gimme a break," Dean complains loudly, and reaches to turn on the radio. 

Sam stops him, grabs his hand, and tries not to be surprised at how Dean blushes and pulls away because he'll lose his edge. "I'm serious," he says. "Fix up some cars, sleep in the same place for more than a week, date someone for more than a night? You gotta admit, it has its appeal."

"Yeah?" his brother asks, eyes on the road, defensive. "What'll you do?"

Sam opens his mouth and then shuts it, thinking. He can't see himself in that life anymore. It doesn't even occur to him. "I'd, y'know," he says. "Stop in every now and then."

Dean barks out a laugh.  _"You'd_ keep hunting?" he asks. "While I get the picket fence? It's not gonna happen, Sammy. Especially not with the whole"--he waves his hand ineffectually--"the whole apocalypse thing."

"Castiel never said you had to keep hunting," Sam reasons. "You think they won't call you when they need you?"

"Yeah, well." Dean swallows uncomfortably. "I'd rather practice. Be ready."

Sam nods. "Yeah, ok," he says. "Just--think about it, will you?"

"Yeah," Dean says. But he won't, and they both know it. 

*  
A month later, the season changes the Midwest from burnt fall colours to the grey bleakness between autumn and winter and the pressure in their lives builds and breaks, and one night Dean kisses him and Sam almost can't make him stop, almost forgets why he should.

Dean rarely speaks during nightmares, maintains a vow of silence beyond the occasional slip of "no" and "don't" and "please", the stubbornness that held out for decades and the only reason there was anything left for Castiel to save. When he does talk, it's to curse out Alistair or some other demon, thirty years worth of defiance and ten years worth of defeat. But one night in early December, he breaks down and begs, and it's not a demon he's talking to.

It's Sam.

In the past weeks Sam's trained himself for this like a dog, can sense an oncoming nightmare and wakes up from it like a shot's gone off, like a companion dog can smell the chemicals that signal an impending seizure. This time, he's late, late because Dean's already in the thick of it, is talking more than he ever has, and Sam berates himself thoroughly until the words hit him like bullets, drop lead into his guts. 

"No God please no Sam don't you're not don't listen to them don't hurt me Sammy you wouldn't I saved you no please  _Sammy."_

 __And with that Sam breaks out of it, shakes Dean until he's awake and staring up at him, panting, wide green eyes glassy in terror. Sam holds him down until Dean realises where he is and stops thrashing, remembers that it's not hell.

"What were you dreaming about?" Sam asks, quiet gravity covering how he's freaking the fuck out past the point where he'd be too scared to ask Dean something he doesn't want to answer, scared of what it could do to them. 

"Nothin'," Dean stammers, "Nothin' worse than usual, Sam."

"You said my name." His voice comes out in a low growl, and he tries to ignore how it makes his brother wince. "You were begging me, Dean. What. The Fuck. Was it?"

Dean won't answer. His arms flies out before Sam can stop it, hits the light switch and floods the room in a blinding dull gold, enough for him to take Sam's face in his hands and stare into his eyes like he's searching for something. A few deep, shuddering breaths and the hands are gone, leaving Sam light-headed and dazed. 

"Sorry," Dean mumbles, backing against the headboard. 

The light has filled the room and changed it, made it a part of Earth instead of an antechamber of hell. Dean looks different in the soft glow, more solid and less breakable, flesh and blood instead of a shade that can be torn apart and reassembled infinite times to experience the same torture at many hands. 

Sam ducks his head, grasping for his earlier determination. "You gonna tell me what happened?" he asks, grave and quiet.

"They," Dean swallows uncomfortably, twists the edge of the sheet around his finger for a second, but he's not going to stall, not going to blow it off, and Sam's holding his breath, waiting. "They made you hurt me," he finishes, voice hollow and oddly false.

"What?" There's something important that's not connecting, round peg in a square hole, and he fights to keep his temper down. 

Dean continues, voice brash, slight incredulous smile like he can't believe he's admitting this or he's trying to mitigate its effect. "When I was, uh. When I'd been . . . on the rack for awhile. They all. They started to look like you. And they were fucking doing it on purpose, man." His voice almost catches and his brother wonders if he's asking for forgiveness. "You always had yellow eyes. And the things they said . . . when they were you . . . that was the worst. That's. That's why I said ok to Alistair and got off." 

"Jesus fuck, Dean." Sam rubs his temples uselessly, nothing else to do. He can see that Dean's kind of shaking a little, trying to hide it and doing a shit job. Maybe he should have left the light off. "I'd never hurt you. Hell, Dean, I'd do what they say I'm gonna and destroy the fucking world first. You know that."

"Yeah," Dean says. He raises his hand and it flutters, hovers uncertainly like a leaf on a breeze before landing on the side of Sam's face and neck. He's looking down but grinning a little, like he needed to hear that, like he has no idea what the swipe of his thumb over Sam's cheekbone is doing, like he's oblivious to the fact that his brother's pulse just skyrocketed. "Yeah," he says again, sounding perfectly sure while his movements are laced with hesitation, murmurs, "I know, I know," and draws Sam closer. 

Sam's brain is coming to a halt, already slowing with his nervous, stuttering breaths, and it shuts off entirely when Dean finally leans in and kisses him, slow gentle brush of lips, and he's lost. He kisses him back, pushes insistently, hands on Dean's back, gripping like he wants to leave bruises, scrapes his tongue against Dean's teeth and swallows the choked noises he's making, thinks  _nothing_ is better than this. Bursts like fireworks are going off in Sam's chest and he doesn't want to stop, doesn't think he's physically capable of it, not until he has Dean spread out and begging beneath him, but then a voice in his head slips in like oil and slices through.  _You wanna fuck him up more?_ it asks snidely, and then Sam's shoving his brother away, horrified and hating himself. 

"Sorry," Dean says quickly, while Sam's still trying to breathe. "Shit, Sam, I'm sorry."

"Fuck, don't--" Sam cuts himself off, knuckles white and hands fisted and trembling on his legs. "Look, just forget it, ok?" They don't say that it's impossible.

Dean nods, eyes lowered to the sheets. "Yeah. Yeah, ok," he mumbles. 

There's another bed in the room, one of those times neither of them wanted to ask for a room with just one and deal with the clerk's expression, but for the rest of the night it stays empty. When Sam wakes up around dawn, Dean's curled into him, head against his chest, and for a second he can't get over how much he loves him, wants nothing more than to wrap his arms around him and stay like that for the rest of the morning. Forcibly, he extricates himself, tears himself away from his brother and seeks refuge in the bathroom. But neither of them moved after last night's train wreck, should have, but didn't, and that changes things. 

*  
They don't talk about it. 

God knows Sam doesn't fucking want to, but at the next stop Dean waits until Sam goes to bed and then slips into the other one like it's normal, and he almost jumps off that cliff. Would have, if he hadn't been scared of what was at the bottom, if he hadn't been staring and Dean's goddamned pretty mouth in his peripheral vision for the past twelve hours and remembering it kiss-swollen, the feel of his soft, chapped lips. As it is he goes to bed and spends a mostly sleepless night, feeling the strain in the room, the fabric of what keeps them together, what keeps them family, about to break. It's the most important thing in Dean's life, and as much as Sam's always hated to admit it, he's not any better. He can't do that to them.

It shouldn't be this bad, Sam keeps thinking, or it has to get better. Dean's eating less and drinking more, and Sam's hardly eating at all, and it's a fucking miracle that they can go through this every day and still function. They drive, find hunts, listen to music too loud, and pretend it's fine when it's not because that's what they've always done, but this time it won't work. The days fade together in a mess of bleached-out fabric, worn too thin with no hope of recovery, and if it keeps going on like this, they will split up. It's becoming inevitable. Sam will leave in the morning while Dean's still sleeping, or Dean will disappear while Sam's in the library, researching their next hunt. It's the only logical end to the road they're on, and Sam's throat closes up every time he thinks of it, feels like he can't breathe. 

They track down a barghest that's going after hikers outside Boulder, Colorado, big nasty dog-like thing with great, rolling red eyes, looks like a hell hound's bastard cousin and brings back bad memories for both of them. But it's corporeal, as Dean keeps saying in his Sam-voice in an attempt to keep himself from freaking out, and a few hours and some scrapes and bruises later, they're burning it to ashes on the side of a mountain. 

Dean gets bad dreams from it, nightmares somehow even worse than his usual, from which he wakes up sobbing, too goddamned loud to hide and he knows it. The second time it happens, Sam gets up and slides in bed next to him, and Dean's got his arms around his brother's waist and his face in his neck before Sam can even tell him to stop being an idiot. Sam holds him like he wanted to a week ago, rubs circles into Dean's back until he falls back asleep, grip relaxing but yielding no space, not that Sam would want any. 

They don't talk about it. 

But after that Dean shares a bed with his brother, even when it's a tiny, crappy double they barely fit in together, even though Sam always gets a room with two just in case. But Dean ignores it, walks past it like he's learned his lesson and knows better now. Sam feels like he's stitching up a wound, this rift between them, but he'll take what he can get. 

*  
Doubtful evidence of a real monster in Lake Champlain brings them to Burlington, Vermont, last stop before the Canadian border. The locals are in an uproar about the recent deaths, attacks that leave nothing leftover except some fragments, pieces of boats and occasionally a limb, a red stain out in the middle of the water. 

Sam nods in grim agreement every time Dean says this sucks, because it's fucking cold, because the fucking media has sent its reporters to crawl all over the place like ants over spilled honey. They talk to supposed eyewitnesses until all the different versions and the crazed enthusiasm leave them with headaches, and they retreat to their room or the library to loosen their ties and do more research. Two weeks and three deaths later, Sam finds the answer, a pissed off spirit of some accidentally drowned kid taking the form of the monster and lashing out, offing random passers-by. She was cute, pigtails and a missing front tooth, all of eight when it happened and absolutely obsessed with Nessie, even insisted on being called that because her name was Vanessa. 

"Sucks," Dean says for the millionth time, but this is different. "Sucks when it's a kid."

 

"Yeah," Sam agrees shortly. There's nothing else to add.

Her body was never found, disappeared beneath the waves to become another myth, and Sam can't figure out why she's resurfacing now, but what he does find is a ritual, incantation and a few things sprinkled into the water on the anniversary of her death that should stop the killings for good. 

But things are never really that easy, and, of course, in the end they aren't. 

The day of Vanessa's death dawns cold and drizzly, only gets worse throughout the day, so that by the time night gives them cover and makes people one less thing to worry about, it's pouring sleet, cold that stings their faces and sneaks into their collars, plasters Sam's bangs to his face. 

"We are insane," Dean hisses. They're going out on the lake in the storm in a fucking rowboat because neither of them knows how to sail. "Swear to God, Sam, this is the new record for the craziest and stupidest thing we've ever done."

"Duty calls," Sam murmurs, distracted. He's not looking at Dean because there are red spots on his cheeks from the cold and his face is wet and glistening in the street light, hair mashed against his scalp and freckles like someone sprinkled pepper across his skin. 

Predictably, she almost fucking kills them. Sam barely manages to finish reciting the incantation before she smashes through the boat, sending the other materials flying. They dispel her just in time to save Dean getting his leg bitten off, and even then it's a miracle they secure enough wreckage to get back to shore. Dean's swearing the whole way and they're both damn near frozen, but Sam can't feel anything except relieved, almost starts laughing at the thought of what Castiel and Uriel would say upon the discovery that the Winchesters finally managed to kill themselves over a rip off of the Loch Ness monster. 

The sleet cuts down like knives of ice, pierces through their already wet clothes, raincoats discarded in the hopes of surviving the lake, numbs them even further until they fall into the car, panting and once again surprised they survived this. Dean drives them back, hands frozen to the wheel. 

By the time they crash through the motel room door they're frozen afresh, rain in the parking lot undoing any benefit the car's heat might have had. Sam hits the light switch on the wall, three tries before he actually gets it on, and sees that Dean's turned blue like marble, lips the colour of one of those lollipops or a type of kool-aid kids get all over their faces, fumbling at his shirt buttons but shaking too bad to get anywhere, so Sam goes to help him. It's probably a dumber idea than going out on that lake, but it seems to make sense at the time. 

"F-fuck." Dean tries to snarl as he jerks away, but it comes out as a stutter. His teeth are chattering like a rattle. "Take care of your own damn clothes."

Sam does, strips all three of his shirts off in a single, fluid movement just to prove that he can, and then he's right there, back in Dean's fucking space, hands covering Dean's on the first button on his shirt. Dean gives up, sucks in a shuddering breath and lets Sam take over, working on the bottom of his shirt as Sam starts from the top. Sam pushes it off his shoulders and it falls to the ground in a sodden, frozen mess, lifts his T-shirt and tank top over his head, and then they're standing chest to chest, breathing each other's air, and Sam's heart is flying because Dean looks absolutely terrified and absolutely beautiful. Dean takes a couple hesitant steps back, mumbles to Sam that he should take the first shower, and he nods, uses the opportunity, escapes before he does something stupid, like going for his belt. 

He showers fast, just long enough to thaw out, tries to leave enough hot water for Dean, tries not to think of Dean in there after him, of Dean working his way out of soaking wet jeans in the outer room. Steam fills the space ahead of him like a sauna when Sam opens the door, cold air already hitting his chest, and he keeps his head down as Dean walks past him, fighting back tears and curses because it shouldn't be like this, it shouldn't fucking  _be_ like this. There's something like fate in how he feels about Dean, like there was no way he could have prevented falling in love with him. He remembers in a sudden flash being five and asking Dean to marry him, playing some game and pushing until Dean said ok and made him swear not to tell anybody. Sam's always known. He fucking knew back then they'd be spending the rest of their lives together, like an earlier manifestation of his premonitions. 

He kicks over a duffel bag in a pointless rage, spilling out underwear like pieces of discarded newspaper, and that's when the power goes out and the world turns black. 

It's too dark to see a foot in front of his face, no lights outside or in, not even fucking lightning. Sam blinks stupidly for a minute like he really expects his eyes to adjust, then reaches down and locates a pair of boxers and realises with a jolt that the shower's still running. 

"Dean!" he calls through the door. "Dean!"

"Power out?" Dean asks, and Sam thanks God he didn't fall or something. 

"Yeah," Sam says, waits a beat. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I--fuck, it's cold!" he swears as the hot water runs out. "I'll be out in a minute Sam."

His brother waits, stands there like he's listening for a ghost in a haunted house, counts the minutes until the shower stops and the door opens and Dean walks right into him, dripping wet and freezing and immediately taking advantage of Sam's warmth. 

"Think once in a fucking night would be enough," Dean says through gritted teeth, body still trembling despite how close he's locked around Sam in an effort to stop it. 

Sam's exasperated and kind of feels completely fucked, wishes he'd at least jerked off in the shower so his body wouldn't be sending him all the wrong signals. The wall is bumpy under his fingers, some sort of paint job in irregular splatters that's supposed to be decorative, as he feels his way along it towards the nearest bed, pulls Dean down with him because he needs to keep him warm and that comes first. They fall in an awkward jumble of arms and legs, and Dean's hands are on him, Dean's breathing against his face, and then for the second time he kisses him. Sam backs away because he's trying too fucking hard, no other real reason for it, but this time Dean follows him, pulls him back down, reminds him, "Anything, Sam, you said anything," with a note of desperation in his voice, and Sam realises. Dean said that the way he felt inside made him not want to feel anything, and the most he's ever felt has been in relation to Sam. Dean wants this to break them, but Sam isn't planning on letting it.

"Jesus, Sam, why won't you?" Dean asks. His hands are running down Sam's sides, cold over his ribs like ice, like dead things. 

"Don't wanna--" Sam's breath stutters, skips like a stone on water. "I don't want to hurt you, you idiot."

Dean grabs Sam's head, fingers curling in his hair, trapping him, presses their foreheads together. "You mean you don't wanna fuck me up," he accuses. "That it, Sammy? You think you can save me now?"

"Goddamnit, Dean," he curses, can't move away now without tearing his own hair out and in truth doesn't really want to.

His brother forces his head back, sucks open-mouthed kisses along Sam's jaw. "Wanna know what else they did to me, Sammy?"

"What?" Sam chokes out. He's lost, body betraying him, hands mindlessly curling around Dean's shoulders and the back of his head.

"Fucked me," Dean says, short and brutal. "Thought about you. The entire goddamn time. Was before they started to use you against me."

"I wouldn't hurt you, Dean," Sam insists, comes out as a growl. "I fucking told you that, man. I wouldn't."

"I know," Dean murmurs, nuzzling his neck. "Show me."

"What?"

"Show me you won't hurt me."

Sam's got a feeling Dean's staring at him, or trying to, can't really because it's not possible in the pitch dark. He swallows, heart thudding, tries not to think about it, to gather his wits. 

"You want me to--?" he asks stupidly, groping blindly because it couldn't be more obvious but he needs to fucking hear it.

"Hell yes," Dean says, hands cupping Sam's face. "Since you were in fucking high school, Sammy."

He stops for a minute, still and shocked, lets the words wash over him and then completely loses it, collapses on top of Dean and attacks his mouth, miracle that he locates it on the first try. It's making Sam light-headed and more than a little crazy, the way Dean opens for him, sucks Sam's tongue into his mouth and wraps a leg around his waist like a reminder, murmurs  _yeah, Sam, yeah_ breathlessly as Sam mouths along his collarbone. 

For the first time Sam realises Dean's naked, stupid oversight because he didn't have any time between the shower and walking into his chest, and he shivers, rips his boxers off and feels skin on skin, nothing left between. Impatient, Dean grabs Sam's wrist and takes his fingers into his mouth, tongue twirls around them sloppily, gets them spit-slicked. 

"You don't want--?" Sam tries to ask.

Dean lets his fingers go with a wet pop. "What?"

The way his cheeks are colouring is completely incongruous in the light of what they're doing, but he can't stop it and it's invisible, anyway. "Lube or something?"

"You are  _not_ stopping," Dean gasps. "No way am I lettin' you go for some Vaseline-- _oh fuck yes."_ His hips buck uselessly as Sam sticks a finger in him. 

Next time, Sam promises himself wildly, he'll fucking see this, have the light and watch Dean coming apart, see how much Dean loves him,  _trusts_ him, even though he doesn't deserve it. How he can give him an escape, blind him with this so hell and everything he went through fades into the background, so nothing else matters, so  _nothing_ is better than this. 

Dean's not thinking about hell right now, and Sam can hear it in the breathless, keening sounds he makes as he twists his fingers in them, hits his prostate and does it again to hear him cry out like that. Sam fucks him, edges in slowly and builds up a rhythm until Dean wraps both legs around him, pulling him in, and he makes a noise of wild abandon, kisses him and slams in so hard he knows Dean's going to be a little sore in the morning, can only hope that he won't care. 

He's wanted this for so long that having it is unreal, insubstantial like a dream that will disappear in the morning, despite the solid heat of Dean's body beneath him, flesh finally warming, returning to life after a brief death, comparably short but far too long.   
 _  
This is real,_ Sam tells himself as Dean shudders, comes over his chest and stomach,  _this is for fucking real, forever,_ and then he's spilling into him, orgasm ripping up his spine as he fucks his tongue into Dean's mouth, pulls out of him slowly.

"Ok?" Sam asks. "You ok, Dean?"

"Never fuckin' better," Dean answers breathlessly, pulls him down and manoeuvres until they fit. "C'mon, Sammy, 'm tired."

They fall asleep with Sam's hand over Dean's on his stomach, Dean's back pressed against Sam's chest, and nothing is better than this.

~*~  
In Dean's dream, he's an angel. He's treading carefully, descending the staircase that leads down to hell, fucking hates it but he's been given orders and can't disobey. He can't exactly tell God the place brings back bad memories, can't even admit he still has the capacity of feeling something like that. Sure as fuck can't tell anybody that deep down he  _wants_ to be here because of what's waiting for him at the end of the road.

The demons hiss at him from the shadows, from the pits of fire, but stick to their work and do not touch him, though he was once so close to being one of their own. Placing his feet carefully, he descends, ignores his terror and the screams of ( _deserving, they have to at least be deserving_ ) victims on the rack. The memories of receiving that pain, of inflicting it, almost makes his knees buckle, almost make him turn and flee back to heaven without completing his task.

But they do not touch him. They are not allowed, and he knows that he is the only one who can do this, walk in hostile territory without being torn apart. He is the only one they have orders to let pass. And that, that is why he is here, even though there are plenty more capable, even though God has to know that it's a risk to send him.

At the end of the stairs is a door, landing stretching before it, to either side in black oblivion. Dean gathers what's left of his courage, his composure, inhales shakily, steps forward and knocks.

The door opens at his touch and he jumps back, heart thudding, hates himself for it, then gingerly steps over the threshold. It's a very simple bedroom, really, nothing more or less, nothing sinister, unless he counts the lack of windows, which would be pointless this far down in hell. There's a fireplace to his left, and bed to his right, a bookcase against the far wall, a desk sandwiched between that and the bed. Sitting at the desk, resolutely looking at the wall before him, is a man who used to be Dean's brother.

"Dean," he says quietly. The name cuts through him like a sword, deeper than he thought possible when Sam faces him, levelly meets his gaze. His eyes are lit by fire, brown and flecked with green like he still remembers in his better dreams, as if Dean never saw him up to his elbows in blood. 

"He." Dean's breath catches, almost can't continue, but he's got a job to do, damn it. "He says he wants his keys back." 

Sam sighs, lets his head slump into his hands and massages his temples like he always did after a particularly difficult afternoon of research. "I know why you're here," he says tiredly. 

Dean steels himself, waiting for more, waiting to have to hold his shaky ground with every ounce of strength he has, but it never comes. Instead, Sam opens a desk drawer and tosses him the keys, bright and silver and dangling from a chain, and he catches it, seeing the Impala's keys every time they tossed them to each other in his mind's eye, sees Sam like he remembers him, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and so fucking innocent it hurts to think about it because they all were back then. Now Sam's muscles flex under black jeans, a black dress shirt so tight Dean gets uncomfortable looking at it, now Sam's watching him with an implacable stare, firelight dancing in his eyes. Dean can go now; he's completed his task and he knows Sam would let him, like he knows the sky above this plane is either blue or flecked with stars. But now that he's free he's tied in place, can't fucking move because even after all this time, he's still attached to Sam.

"Dean," the man who was his brother says. It's almost too quiet to be heard, more like a breath.

He flinches, keys digging into his hand. "Why--why are you even still  _calling_ me that?"

"Because it's your name," Sam tells him, as if anything could possibly ever be that simple.

"Was," Dean insists, reminds him, isn't sure which one of them he's trying to convince. "I'm not--it's not me anymore. And you're not you." 

"Do you really believe that?" his brother ( _not his brother, Antichrist, Boy King, anything but his brother_ ) asks quietly. It's amazing, how he can keep so goddamned calm.

Dean edges towards the door, fists and teeth clenched, eyes squinted shut. "I have to," he says. 

"Dean." Sam whispers his name like it's something precious, and he's frozen in place. "Dean, come here."

He has the fucking keys, he should go, needs to just turn around and  _go_ and he'll be out of here, but he doesn't. The keys fall to the ground with a chime like dying bells, and Dean's leaving them, stepping over them to get to Sam, straddling his hips in his desk chair and saying,  _"Sam, Sam, Sammy,"_ over and over again like surrender. 

Their mouths clash in a desperate mess, crash together like an earthquake, and Sam's got his hands on Dean's hips and Dean's got his hands on Sam's head and they're trying to pull each other closer even though there's no space left between them because it's been too fucking long. With a growl that immediately goes south, Sam picks him up, drops him onto the bed, and before Dean can react, Sam's there, covering him, removing his clothing piece by piece and kissing his skin almost reverently, like he's something to be worshipped. He remembers how Sam always made him feel like that and tries momentarily to think of a good reason for why it was ever wrong (because there was something, had to be something), but he quickly loses track of where he was going, never was much good for thinking when Sam's mouth was on his cock. 

Dean pulls at his hair, yells muddled encouragement and every obscenity he knows, finally comes with a moan down the back of his brother's throat, thinking it's been too goddamned long, remembering that nothing is better than this. He feels Sam pull off him, lick patterns into his stomach until he's hard again, and then Sam's fingers are in his mouth, Sam's prepping him like he did the first time, and finally Sam's  _in_ him. Uselessly, he clutches at Sam's shoulder-blades, wraps his legs around him, and everything whites out, filling him with pure, white nothing and with Sam, thinks that's how it's supposed to be, thinks that every time will be like the first because of how his body regenerates now, and he can't give that up, loves Sam too much, can't go away knowing that it's still  _Sam._ Thinks that Sam moving in him would kill him if it could, that it's possibly the best thing. 

"Fuck it," Dean pants, when it's over. '"If he wants his keys so friggin' bad he can come get them himself. I ain't leaving again."

"About fucking time you got some sense." Sam's grinning at him, so wide it's got to feel like his face is fixing to split, but he obviously can't stop. The firelight flickers, glitters orange across his teeth. "I love you," he says solemnly, drawing Dean into his chest.

"Love you more," Dean insists, curling in closer.

They fall asleep with their bodies intertwined, and for the first time Dean's home. 

~*~  
Dean wakes up to Sam watching him in the dull grey light coming in the window, fuelled by the sun behind the clouds. The power's still out, and they're gritty and sweaty from last night, and Dean wonders when the hell they're going to get clean. 

"Mornin'," Sam says, breath gusting over Dean's mouth, so he leans in and kisses him because it's an invitation. 

After the dream he had, Dean's exhausted, in some ways worse than when he went to sleep. He yawns, lets his head fall back on Sam's shoulder. 

"You still tired?" Sam asks, adoration and amusement.

Dean looks at him carefully. "I had a dream," he says. "Not like that." He lowers his gaze quickly. "I mean, I'm not sure if it was good, exactly, but it was weird--" Dean breaks off, looks at his brother again only to see hellfire dancing in his eyes. 

"Yeah," Sam says, cupping his face, swiping his thumb under Dean's eye, a means of comfort. "I know, I know."

"Sam--" Dean begins, startled.

Sam ducks his head, hiding behind his bangs. "You're not gonna freak out on me now, are you?"

"No," Dean says, pressing a kiss to his brother's wrist, thinks about it honestly. "No, I don't think so."

"Not later either?" Sam persists.

"No, I think you're stuck with me, Sammy," he reassures him, grinning crookedly.

Sam looks at him then, sharp and direct and it takes his breath away. "This is forever, Dean. World can end, I still got you. You hear me?"

"S'long as I still got you," Dean says, just to see Sam grin, bright and wide and happy.

Outside, it's pouring, remnants of last night's sleet warmed to a cold rain. Dean moulds himself to Sam and watches it come down, thinks that they'll leave this place in the dark and go somewhere warm and sunny, where he can lay Sam out and map every inch of his skin. Sam presses his mouth along the back of Dean's neck, promises to keep him safe,  _heaven and hell don't matter shit, Dean, I got you, man, I got you._

 __Nothing is better than this.

~End.


End file.
